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Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Missed Connections

The meeting had been arranged by the agency.It was in a city that was between the separate
cities they lived in – neutral ground.

Well that was the theory, anyway.Cora knew that theory had some big holes in
it, starting with this ageless one: how do you put the lid back on a can of
worms once you’ve opened it?

Arriving at the restaurant, she was led to a secluded table
toward the back.Relief shivered through
her when she saw the empty table and realized that she’d arrived first.

Her relief was short-lived; only minutes later she saw the maître
d leading an older woman toward her.

Cora slid her hands into her lap, in case they were shaking,
and waited for the woman to sit down and go through the ritual of ordering a
drink.

Silence hummed between them as they looked at each other for
the first time, face to face.

“Thank you for meeting with me,” the older woman’s voice was
low, and whispered with nerves.

“I had to think about it for a while, but…” Cora faltered
and the other woman leapt to fill the gap.

“I understand.Really.”

“Mrs…” Cora sighed a little and met the woman’s eyes directly.“I’m not sure what to call you.

“Eve is fine.Or you
can call me Mrs. Morton, if you’re more comfortable.Either is fine!”She pressed her lips together as the waiter
approached with their drinks.

Once the waiter moved on, Cora picked up her wine and sipped
at it.She didn’t really want it, but it
gave her a chance to study the woman sitting across from her.When Eve also picked up her glass, Cora
figured she was doing the same.

Their eyes were different shapes, and so were their
lips.But they shared a nose that turned
up just a bit.

They’d exchanged some e-mails through the agency before
meeting.Cora had made sure to tell Eve
that her parents loved her, and that she’d never harbored any ill will.Eve had made sure to tell Cora that she wasn’t
intending to replace her parents.Boundaries
established, a lunch date had been set.

“Cora…I’ve wanted to meet you for so long, and now that I
have…” Eve frowned and looked down at her hands.

“You don’t feel a connection the way you thought you would,”
Cora finished.

Eve’s eyes flicked up to lock on Cora’s, and she nodded.

Cora reached across the table to lay her hand gently on Eve’s
knotted fingers.

“Neither do I.”

At Cora’s soft words, the tension banded around them
snapped, and the two women settled down to enjoy their lunch before returning
home.

This post is my response to a prompt from Write On Edgeto write about a face to face meeting which, for better or worse, doesn't go as planned. I wrote about a woman, adopted as a baby, meeting her birth mother for the first time.

One of the very first questions people usually ask me when they find out I'm adopted, is if I've tried to find my birth mother. It's natural, I suppose, although it's always struck me as sort of weird. What if I mentioned I had a third cousin, twice removed, that I'd never met? I'm not sure, but I don't think people would ask if I'd ever tried to find that cousin. (Then again, maybe they would...I'll have to try it and find out.)

I never felt any particular urge to find my birth mother. I have a mother, so I guess I never gave any serious thought to finding another one. I also never harbored any bad feelings toward my birth mother, either. I think I could best be described as completely neutral. Meh, as the current trend expresses it.

An interesting question I did get once is what inspired this post. Someone asked me if I thought I would justknow if I ever met my birth mother. Sort of like a cosmic umbilical cord, maybe? Since I did live most of my life in the same, lightly populated state I was born in, I guess randomly meeting my birth mother isn't out of the realm of possible. If I did, I never knew it. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought, what about the people who do try to find their birth parents and succeed? What if one, or both, assumed there'd be that cosmic umbilical cord connection? That's a lot of pressure when you're meeting a stranger for the first time!

What do you think? What if one person felt the connection, and the other didn't? What if neither felt the connection but thought they should, so they both faked it?

Thank you for stopping by, and PLEASE let me know what you think in the comments!